IT happens in Mahavilachchiya
Will mobile phone networks go the way of fixed line networks? In the poorest parts of the world - where no phones exist - wireless makes a lot of sense. Take Mahavilachchiya, Sri Lanka, a village on the edge of the Vilpattu jungle. Thanks to wireless technology, it now calls itself the first model e-village in the country.
This little miracle has happened thanks to the Horizon Lanka Foundation and Sri Lanka’s Information and Communication Technology Agency. Will other villages be so lucky? Possibly. In Nepal, a local teacher has pulled off a similar project for Yak farmers eager to keep in touch with their families while tending their herds.
For the world’s poorest, wireless makes sense. Longer term, could the same be true for the rest of us?
March 12, 2007 at 10:39 am
Projects like these, however, are not hurting growth in Sri Lanka’s telecom
sector. It soared to 7.3m users in 2006, led by a 59% rise in new mobile phone connections. Growth was spurred by competition from new market players and call rate cuts of as much as 40%, the Sri Lanka telecommunications Regulatory Commission says. The waiting list for fixed-line phone services remains long - 366,000 at last count - fixed-line subscribers rose to 1.9m in 2006 from 1.2m a year earlier, after the Commission granted CDMA licenses to three firms, allowing them to use the cheaper technology to expand their offerings outside the main centres.
March 14, 2007 at 1:32 pm
[...] Global Technology Forum Digital business strategies « IT happens in Mahavilachchiya [...]
March 14, 2007 at 8:21 pm
It is my understanding that the World Bank has decided to terminate funding for several ICTA initiatives, most notably the Nanasala (telecentre) program. The ICTA then approached other donors, including the MCC in the US, but was turned down. Thus, it is quite likely that many of the centers will close.
I personally visited a couple of the Nanasalas and have very mixed feelings about them. On the one hand, the people running them were clearly extremely thoughtful people, dedicated to trying to improve the lives of their neighbors. On the other hand, both Nanasalas I visited were poorly located and difficult for villagers to reach (20-30 minute walk from village center) and the VSAT connection is very expensive - about $300/month - and barely better than dial-up. Moreover, the training offerings appear quite uneven. It is hard to see how the effort can be sustained without continual donor or government subsidy.
ICT in developing countries has to be about more than putting PCs in villages. Dropping 4PCs in a village in South Asia is a great photo-op, but unless the technology is connected to people’s lives, the computers themselves serve little purpose. Absent value-added services such as VOIP, financial services, tele-medicine, jobs skills training etc, the PCs contribute little to local development. This is why ICT4D has to be about more than the technology, it has to be about delivering services that poor, rural consumers want and are willing to pay for.
There are other efforts underway in SL to promote a more market-based solution using wireless broadband technologies that will allow for a much greater degree of functionality at far lower cost. Broadband will allow VOIP and other services that will greatly expand the numbers of people exposed to the technology and benefitting from it.
March 15, 2007 at 9:00 am
[...] or photo-ops? Following yesterday’s blog, a reader from the US has commented on our post on the e-village in Sri Lanka. He writes: “I [...]
March 21, 2007 at 5:06 am
Hi
I think wireless technology can make things better, even for Nanasala or Mahavilachchiya eVillage. I heared that SLT has done their testing on WiMAX as well as Dialog’s piolet project is in progress. So hope this would give a relief for the current very high cost of connectivity which is crucial for delivering services.
Sameera
http://ict4d-in-srilanka.blogspot.com
March 21, 2007 at 10:12 am
There is no doubt that wireless technology’s real benefit is to reduce the cost, improve the quality and increase the penetration of connectivity in Sri Lanka and other developing countries. I believe the standard tariff for 1-1.5mb of wireless connectivity in Sri Lanka is around USD150/month (that could be off, but not by much) while the cost of the same capacity in Singapore, Hong Kong, North America and much of Europe is significantly lower (where wireless connectivity is, in fact, available).
There is no doubt that the Mahavilachchiya project is noble effort. The question is whether it’s all that it’s been represented to be. A smooth website does not make a smoth project. And the developing world (since this is not exclusive to Sri Lanka) deserves an honest assessment of these types of projects. When less than stellar projects are celebrated beyond a justified level, it conveys the unfortunate low level of expectation set by the funders of these types of initiatives.
April 4, 2007 at 2:21 am
I am Nandasiri Wanninayaka, the founder of Horizon Lanka Foundation. I admire you all dedicating a thread specially dedicated to Mahavilachchiya.
I Particularly like to comment on this comment which was linked to this thread but appears in another thread.
Quote [Technology or photo-ops?
Following yesterday’s blog, a reader from the US has added some first-hand feedback on projects like the e-village in Sri Lanka. He writes: “I personally visited a couple of the telecentres (in South Asia) and have very mixed feelings about them. On the one hand, the people running them were clearly dedicated to trying to improve the lives of their neighbors. On the other hand, both I visited were poorly located and difficult for villagers to reach and the VSAT connection is very expensive - about $300/month. It is hard to see how the effort can be sustained without continual donor or government subsidy.”
His main point - that dropping 4PCs in a village in South Asia is a great photo-op, but unless the technology is connected to people’s lives, the computers serve little purpose - couldn’t be more apt. Getting information about the developing world from web pages like this one is clearly not good enough.] Unquote
Thank you very much for enlightening. I too personally have seen where farmers are forcefully dragged in to computer labs and photos taken while farmers (reluctantly) using PCs and put up the photos in websites to make the donors happy. In Mahavilachchiya it is different. You can visit and see the difference yourself. Farmers read local language newspapers before going to ricefields, of course with the children’s support in many cases. Read http://www.horizonlanka.org/news/mesh/kumar/kumar.html and http://www.horizonlanka.org/news/mesh/launch/visiting_village.html
But this doesn’t mean we are perfect. Still we have a long way to go. Our plan is given below to complete within this year. Let’s see how far we can go. You also can send your feedback as how to develop the plan more and “go beyond a photo opportunity.” More comments are welcome, both positive and negative. As for the children, constructive criticisms are welcome.
This is our plan for this year. Will keep you updated about the developments and how we achieve the goals if interested.
Mahavilachchiya - The First Model eVillage of Sri Lanka
Mahavilachchiya.net – eVillage in the Jungle
IT happens in Mahavilachchiya
Vision - Making Mahavilachchiya the ICT hub of Sri Lanka
Mission -
1. Bridging the digital divide by empowering the village community through promoting ICT awareness of the general public and bringing the technical expertise to the village level by connecting the village community to the outside world.
2. Offering a pioneer level testing ground and a launching pad for the modern innovative technologies through proper utilization and further development of the unique infrastructure available at Mahavilachchiya.
3. Helping the growth of village economy by creating jobs and Business Process Outsourcing opportunities for the village youth through ICT based training and facilitating an international level education through the mastery and proper use of English - the global link language.
4. Awakening the innate talents of village children and youth.
5. Retaining the national identity by preserving the age old traditions and cultural values.
6. Being a model to the emerging eVillages in the country. Replicating Mahavilachchiya model throughout the country.
7. Eradicating poverty and ignorance.
Goals, aims and objectives
1) Increasing computer literacy in the village up to 500 (per year)
making mesh productive network for general public
e-commerce - with super markets
2) Online resumes of the youth with video clips (Sinhala/English) 100×12
3) Special talents of the community online 4×12
4) Make http://www.mahavilachchiya.net a living site (updated daily – at least a news item or change of a picture)
5) Administrating Mahavilachchiya.net/blog
6) Making mesh productive network for children. Each student is expected to send these to eVillage project manager electronically.
i. write an email at least once a week to the e-mentor
ii. write 5 emails to 5 friends per week
iii. Write an English essay once a week
iv. Create a PowerPoint presentation once a month
v. Create an Excel sheet for one month’s expenses of the house
vi. Create a graphic work with Paint/Photoshop once a week
vii. Create a webpage and update monthly
viii. Maintain an online blog/diary
ix. IMing with friends, etc. in English at least — minutes a week
x. Maintaining Flickr, YouTube galleries
xi. Educational games
xii. Internet banking
xiii. VOIP
xiv. Mapping/Google Earth
xv. News reading (sending the most talked about local news, foreign news, sports news, etc. to Project Team)
7) making mesh productive network for youth
i. Create a webpage and update monthly
ii. Maintain an online blog/diary
iii. IMing with friends, etc. in English at least — minutes a week
iv. Maintaining Flickr, YouTube galleries
v. Reading news, sports, fashion, etc sites
vi. Seeking/researching jobs and emailing applications (Gazette)
vii. Entertainment (audio, video, games, etc.)
viii. Internet banking
ix. Paying online bills
x. Emailing
xi. VOIP
i. Internet banking
ii. Paying online bills
iii. Reading news sites
iv. Entertainment
v. Share market
vi. Emailing
vii. VOIP
viii. e-channeling
9) making IT possible for all kind of people in the village (clergy, teachers, doctors, ayurvedic doctors, forces personnel, businessmen, government servants, mechanics, etc)
10) Teaching literacy to illiterate using PCs (5 per month)
11) produce reports to ICTA on time (monthly)
12) get media coverage to eVillage project through print and electronic media
13) Teaching ICT to homeguards, police and army, youth clubs, community clubs
14) Specific increase in productivity in farming and bringing a brand name for Mahavilachchiya agricultural products.
15) getting funds to cover whole village with mesh – we have given coverage only to 1/4 of the village (we have to cover the rest of the village with expanding mesh or introducing WiMax)
16) Need to make at least few of these 28 “meshed up” houses and two public schools kiosks for others to use Internet, photocopy, laminating, telephone calls, etc.
17) Having workshops to community in the village at Horizon Lanka Foundation
1
19) e-health /Ayurveda
20) e-agriculture
21) Promoting ecotourism
22) Promoting cultural identity
23) Starting Business Process Outsourcing (A new company is already registered for this process and the work will begin in April. 500 jobs are already promised by companies in Colombo, the commercial capital of Sri Lanka.)
24) Income generating Projects
25) Gaining sustainability, last but not the least. All above activities will be focused on this.
April 4, 2007 at 11:01 am
[...] or photo-ops - Take 2 A Sri Lankan reader has added to our thread on bringing the web to third world [...]
April 6, 2007 at 3:41 am
None of above goals will be achieve in Sri Lanka due to the fact that we are unable to use the local language in the computer. One can have all the new technology. The local population use Sinhala and Tamil. We are unable to use a computer in tri lingual with text data compatible across all operating systems and platforms.
Actual images of web text can be seen
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7528191@N04/
Also this problem has been discussed in detail
http://www.lirneasia.net/2006/12/software-issues-in-sri-lanka-part-6/
More on my site
http://www.akuru.org
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
April 11, 2007 at 11:26 am
[...] do you say that in Sinhala? Our thread on e-villages in rural Asia has attracted two more comments from Sri Lanka . One of them points out that all the computers [...]
April 13, 2007 at 8:35 am
I started my career as an English language teacher. I don’t say local languages are unimportant. But what I wanted was enable the village students to use English as we cannot rule out important of English in the globalising world. Maybe these youth from Mahavilachchiya can start local language comment creations in time to come. My main focus is create an English speaking environment in the village. We have been successful here as most of our students get better passes for English than their first language. With the US and British volunteers visiting Mahavilachchiya for teaching and research assignments students get more chances to speak in English and once this comes to a satisfactory level, we can worry about local languages.
I agree most of the things mentioned in our ambitious plan will be difficult to execute without a local language but at this level we worry much about improving English standard in the village as it is a marketable language and youth will be able to get more job opportunities with English and ICT skills. The newly started BPO Company in Mahavilachchiya will start operations during this month and 500 job opportunities are guaranteed. But we will take youth in manageable numbers initially.
April 13, 2007 at 3:59 pm
You can contribute to the success of the Mahavilachchiya ICT project through http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/1700/proj1657a.html if you like.
Regards,
Wanni
April 16, 2007 at 2:02 am
Sri Lanka have a population of 19 million people. The official langauge of the country is Sinhala and Tamil. In Singapore there are four official languages. Asian countries are multilingual. English being the link language.
In Sri Lanka all the government documentation are issued in Sinhala language. All the education is done in Sinhala. English is thought as a subject. 70% of the student will not obtain the pass marks in English at the GCE o/L examination.
Technically all computers are multilingual. The problem in Sri Lanka is what they registered in the unicode consortium or the Srilanka Standard institute is in the the type writer character set as the Sinhala language. Computer is not a typewriter. Instead of registering the typewriter concept SLSI should have to register all the sinhala and Tamil characters in proper matrix.
Since there are no proper locations for all Sinhala characters (code points) the text is not compatible across all platforms.
If the public who are educated in local languages are given the chance of using proper local languages in a computer they will be able to leapfrog into the computer world.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
April 21, 2007 at 6:10 am
Horizon Lanka Foundation http://www.horizonlanka.org/ in Mahavilachchiya http://www.mahavilachchiya.net has registered a company called OnTime Technologies to start Business Process Outsourcing project with the help of FARO http://www.farolanka.org. The operations will start this month. CEO of the company is a young staff member Nirosh Manjula and I am only the non executive Chairman of the company. I am happy how these young people from the village succeed in this venture. This is the first ever BPO in a rural village in Sri Lanka.
April 26, 2007 at 4:30 am
Please read this email I wrote to the Editor and the Webmaster of a national newspaper. We want to encourage them to pay more attention on to the web edition of the newspaper.
Dear Editor, Webmaster,
I am attaching two images of Divaina yesterday (April 25th) with this email. (The visitors to this blog can access the images at http://www.flickr.com/photos/7983377@N07/ )
In one image you see the printed version (must be the Colombo version) carries out the news article about Sri Lanka winning the World Cup semifinal where as the online version doesn’t mention anything about this!!!! In the other parts of the world, this is usually the other way round. Online version is updated timely and the printed version carries older news sine it has to undergo a tedious process from the writer to the newspaper distributor which is understandable.
I hope you will keep the Divaina.com website updated timely. We even pay for subscription for the online version and you have a duty to upload the newest content to the site.
Hope this email would be taken constructively and required attention would be paid to take necessary actions to keep the website updated.
http://www.divaina.com is a very good resource for the Diaspora than us. I understood how much I craved for updated news from Sri Lanka while I was out of the country and Divaina.com was a great relief.
Also please understand that Divaina.com only uploads few selected articles from the printed version whereas lankadeepa.lk uploads the full version of the newspaper as a PDF file and a JPG image. This solves font downloading problem as well.
Be informed that internet penetration in the country is increasing remarkably now even villages get internet and having timely updated newspapers would be appreciated immensely. Even in my village Mahavilachchiya in Anuradhapura, we have provided 28 internet connections to village houses and 2 pubic schools free of charge and there are 7 WiFi zones in the village. So internet penetration is very high. Farmers get the printed newspaper by the evening as it goes to the boutiques in the village with the bread man in the evening. But now with the newly provided Internet access, farmers read online newspapers even before they go to chenas and rice fields in the morning. Visit http://www.horizonlanka.org/news/mesh/launch/visiting_village.html and see this yourself.
Regards,
Wanni
T B Nandasiri Wanninayaka
Founder
Horizon Lanka Foundation
101, Mahavilachchiya
Anuradhapura
Sri Lanka
077-7702678 (Mobile)
060 225 6696 (Official)
wanni@horizonlanka.org, wanni77@yahoo.com
http://www.horizonlanka.org http://www.horizonlanka.org/wanni
Skype: wanninayaka
GTalk: wanninayaka
Yahoo Messenger: wanni678
MSN: wanni@hotmail.com
May 13, 2007 at 10:46 am
Our blog is moved to this address http://mahavilachchiya.wordpress.com/
July 10, 2007 at 7:13 pm
I am a retired Septuagenarian from India interested in all that happens around me. By chance I stepped into globaltechforum.wordpress.com site and joined today. I find the globaltechforum.wordpress.com different from others and seems to be user friendly. Perhaps I may be in a better position to pass comments after going though the Community Portals and the Forums properly. My knowledge of using a computer is just Zero or at basic level! But my enthusiasm in acquiring knowledge compels me to delve into subjects that I do not know. My motto in life is “Sapere Aude” in Latin meaning “Dare to be wise”. I believe in Love towards all living beings in the borderless World.
Brahmanyan.
September 22, 2007 at 2:46 am
Hi all!
interesting info
October 20, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Hi! I just found this forum and it looks really cool.
Now, I gotta run off and read some posts.
November 15, 2007 at 10:21 am
Hello
I’ve just registered at the forum. This is my first message.
Please don’t become angry about me.
Thank you.
December 19, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Oh, and did not know about it. Thanks for the information …